


Sunshine Riptide

by Mangerine



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Future Fic, Getting Together, Giving gifts is about intention | Recieving them is about interpretation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28914237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangerine/pseuds/Mangerine
Summary: Gift-giving is a valid love language and all -- but would it kill Victor to explain why he just dropped an Applin in Hop’s hands and fell asleep?
Relationships: Hop/Masaru | Victor
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Sunshine Riptide

**Author's Note:**

> The nights are long but the years are short.

**_#840 - Applin_ **

_It spends its entire life inside an apple. It hides from its natural enemies, bird Pokémon, by pretending it's just an apple and nothing more._

They’re in the middle of an artificial lake in Hulbury Ocean, a loop by the pier drawn by ropes and buoys. The sun is so hot the plastic roof of their Lapras loveboat might melt on their heads.

It’s so hot that no fish are biting and no fishermen are at Hulbury pier. It’s so hot that no other customers are around. 

It’s so hot, and Hop’s legs are too long for the tacky ride Victor folded and shoved him into.

Victor’s face is a block of Never-melt Ice, not a drop of sweat on his face, his brow relaxed, his eyes far and staring straight ahead. His gaze stays far beyond the stringed up life-buoys that keep the loveboats from floating out to sea, or from ambitious lovers attempting to elope. His lips stay sealed, and his intentions stay mysterious.

“When you said you wanted to show me somewhere cool-” Hop begins, the salty air drying the words on his tongue.

“I got you something,” Victor says.

Victor turns and the movement rocks the boat. Their shoulders are too broad for this ride now – angling to face each other, their backs block the open windows of the boat. This would have been sweet when they were fifteen.

As they are now, Hop contemplates if Champion Victor is about to hand him an official document, and if the ride was a convenient and absurd rendezvous point.

It’s a windless day, and through the roof the sun still rubs their faces apple-red.

Victor reaches into his pocket. Hop drops his eyes down, to his cold fingers clenched in his lap. The heat makes every small movement of existing deliberate. As Hop blinks the red-dark of his eyes is a pre-heating oven door. The sun makes copper coils of his bones and fuses him to his seat.

His hand is turned over by another burning, cold hand. The sphere pressed into his open palm is the temperature of blood. It’s for him. It’s his.

Hop opens his eyes, and the pokéball in his hand is turned red side up. Through the rose-tinted acrylic Hop can see the excited, bouncing form of Applin. Applin can see the beet-red face of his new owner.

After all these years.

“Applin,” Hop says, addressing his exuberant new pokémon/gift/confession.

“Not much of a surprise, is it?” Victor asks, his voice an iceberg in choppy waters, “you saw me catch it at the Isle.”

“It’s been five years, Vic,” Hop replies, “I’m plenty surprised.”

Victor shifts again, and Hop ignores his staring.

“You’re surprised?” Victor asks, his incredulous tone probing at Hop, “You _knew_ it was for you, didn’t you?”

“It’s been **five years,** Vic,” Hop repeats, “I’m allowed to be surprised.”

“Who else was it going to be for?” Victor asks, folding his arms in a show of unjustifiable indignance, “you knew I loved you ever since we-”

“You didn’t say _anything!”_ Hop nearly shouts, kicking down as he straightens. The boat sways forward, then dips back. He’d wrote off what he saw as imagination years ago, some vision he edited in his memories. The gift never came, he waited. He released the Applin he caught, and the next day he got himself prescription lenses.

“But you knew,” Victor insists.

Then he yawns.

“You- you-“ Hop sputters, electricity in the red of his cheeks like a Pikachu, “Are you falling asleep right now?”

Victor leans his warm, warm head on Hop’s right shoulder, his breathing deep and slow. His exhale vibrates the humid air between them, and the blood in Hop’s veins ripple from Victor, alive beside him.

“Parasol helped me just now,” Victor mumbles.

“Your Shiinotic? You snorted spores before confessing to me?” Hop asks, leaning away and twisting to get a good glare at Victor. Victor keeps his insistent weight on Hop; the boat keeps tilting, lower and lower.

“Why?”

“Nervous.”

“Since when!” Hop seethes, “You were reading comics before the Championships!”

“Just answer the question,” Victor grumbles, eyes firmly closed.

Then he’s asleep.

It’s so _hot._ From his soggy shoes parboiling in the seawater leaking in, to his Victor, to the Applin and the implications in his hands. It’s the hottest day of summer and the world is red like love and anger and the isotonic drink he’ll need after he dehydrates himself tonight. Red like the tips of Scorbunny’s ears, twiddling as he let Victor choose his starter first. Red like first loves are.

“But you didn’t ask me anything,” Hop whines.

xo

**_#315 - Roselia_ **

_Its flowers give off a relaxing fragrance. The stronger its aroma, the healthier the Roselia is._

“You killed every other plant that wasn’t watered by sprinklers,” is Victor’s texted reply. Hop glares so fiercely at his phone that Rotom wobbles out of reach, floating behind a stack of books.

The spoilt little Roselia on his desk huffs and swipes the gift ribbon off the crown of her head, uncovering her natural tiara – three green quills, each of her thorns a fleshy green, saturated with poison.

Cinderace bounces over, curious and exuberant with his new sibling, only for Roselia to stamp her feet in annoyance, raising one of her rosy fists and squeaking loudly in anger.

Hop peers out the lab window, but the Corviknight that delivered the little menace was long gone. Groggy from sleep and rudely awakened to a giant beak knocking the door down, Hop could only blink as a Roselia daintily dropped off Corviknight’s large back, stomped over Hop’s feet, and invited herself in. 

Undefeated in his enthusiasm, Cinderace approaches again with a mug of water for Roselia, setting it by her with a friendly smile. Roselia seems pleased, clambering over the lip of the mug to sniff carefully at the water.

She then shoves it resolutely to the ground. Hop’s last clean mug shatters with the joy on Cinderace’s face.

“She only likes spring water, no tap water, ok? Take good care of her!” Rotom reads, from a safe distance.

Oh, these are grounds for a break-up.

Not just spring water – pH treated, distilled spring water. UV lamps were unacceptable as well, it had to be sunlight, preferably at the break of dawn. The afternoon sun was too hot, even in the moderate autumn of Wedgehurst. Hop had to bring her in before she broke a window – such devastating aim with pebbles for a creature with flowers for hands.

The list didn’t end there – she was partial to the evening sun as well, and would pluck Hop’s thumbdrive out his laptop and run to the door with months of his research, threatening him with a headbutt unless he opened the door.

He’d installed a pokémon door she was too prim for, another ruse to inconvenience him. He’d open the door and she’d charge at his ankles like a Tauros out to the garden with her thorns, locking him out until Sonia came back from dinner break.

“Crispy,” Hop begs through the window at his Cinderace, “you almost have it! Come on, you can do it!”

Cinderace nods and turns to the smooth chrome of the door knob, clutching it firmly with his soft paws. He twists, and the knob turns encouragingly – before slipping out his furry paws.

Hop can feel his hair turning white – he should have trimmed Crispy’s paw pads last week like he was meaning to. He turns dejectedly from the window, turning to greet the setting sun.

Through his tired eyes, rolling Wooloo in the far field blur like stars in his vision. Yet the silhouette of the Roselia on the mailbox is unmistakeable. She’s seated with her back to him, her small form regal in the setting sun.

Sonia wouldn’t be back for another hour. Hop removes his glasses and wobbles over to Roselia.

He hasn’t tripped on the weeds recently – their small garden has been thriving ever since Hop’s spent more time locked out the lab. When Victor arrives Hop plans to show him the thriving herbs. If he proves he has a green thumb, maybe Victor will take his green, blooming middle-finger back with him.

A night breeze arrives, advertising the diner down the road – it smells like bread bowls are the special tonight. Hop pats his pocket-

No wallet.

Roselia turns at his heavy footsteps and hugs his thumbdrive tighter, frowning and pointing her crown at him.

“Oh, come off it,” Hop scolds, staring at pale setting sun, its yellow a 4 in a beaker of universal indicator, “all your poison does is put me down for a nap anyhow.”

Roselia reply is to knit her brow, straining for a moment before a large, juicy drop of purple begins to ooze from her crown. Every bit as bull-headed as her father; it’s charming, but Victor really should just visit himself. 

“Yes, yes, you can do worse,” Hop waves, unfazed.

For a moment more, Hop considers the evening, both his head and stomach empty. The fields and clouds roll with the breeze, even the sun ripples. He has to filter and treat the water tonight, after dinner and before he sleeps.

The long grass is alive and even the quiet berry trees are home to Skwovets. The Rookidees roost on roofs and the streetlights come on as the sun dips over the horizon.

“Salad for dinner sounds good tonight,” he mumbles, turning to Roselia.

She snaps up, her small face astonished – then brave. She lowers her head and jets forward, spearing so resolutely into Hop’s forearm that she falls with him as he collapses.

“No—I didn’t mean **_you_** \--- _cough –_ I can’t feel my – “

That’s how Sonia finds him, sleeping like the dead in their front yard, Roselia tucked in the pocket of his lab coat for warmth.

“My,” Sonia remarks, snapping a photo before reaching down for Roselia, “aren’t you a miracle worker – he hasn’t had dark circles since you arrived.”

Roselia preens in her palms, sweetly fragrant from pride and meticulous care.

“He’s been eating as well hasn’t he? What with you dragging him out during lunch,” Sonia continues, “Victor really knew what he was doing when he sent you,”

Sonia gently returns Roselia to Hop’s pocket, and hefts him upright, staggering to the door. She struggles for her keys, only for the front door to swing open for her. Sonia squints up and laughs.

“Oh, Crispy, I never knew you could do that!”

xo

****

**_#606 – Beheeyem_ **

_Whenever a Beheeyem visits a farm, a Dubwool mysteriously disappears._

Even the cushions stuffing smell of Roselia’s petals now, but her aroma is no comfort. These nights all it does is keep the worst nightmares at bay.

 _These nights -_ it’s already been a week.

Hop props himself up again, only for the staggering pain in his shins to remind him why he lay down in the first place. He sits upright when he thinks he can, in the middle of the night, before he swoons, the world smudging into shadows and light, and he has to rest again.

The sky conspires against him – the rain falls in buckets through the day and the sky is moonless at night. The small streams in the weald overflow and carry the water pokémon into the thick grass overland. He can’t get more than five steps without a wild pokémon accosting him – he forgets to switch Cinderace out after the sudden rain, and he nearly faints with the unrelenting type disadvantage.

Yet today, deep in the weald, he saw it – three flashing lights, floating disembodied in the fog. He might have heard bleating too, though it might had been his delirium. It was so close, within reach, and then it wasn’t.

The nights have been cold, which Dubwool endures, but they’ve been so damp – his coat, what if it got bogged with mud? If his hooves got heavy and it flooded again?

His lungs compress from worry and fill with anxiety in place of air. Hop sits up again, and this time he finds the strength to stand upright. The moonlight catches Crispy’s ears perking, and then he’s in front of the door, arms wide as a barricade.

“You have to let me go,” Hop whispers, staggering nearer. He sees long ears shaking _no_ in the dark; a paw extends longer still, straining in the moonlight.

“You _have_ to,” Hop wheezes again, “I have to find him, before something happens.”

The clouds shift, the moon is out tonight. It’s a sign, a smiling crescent in the sky, or perhaps a leer – but Hop can ignore it. All he wants is the unfeeling face of the pokémon he’s hunting.

From the far dark of the room is a heavy movement, and Hop turns to see Zamazenta emerge from the inky dark, slowly waking from sleep. Hidden in the day are the dull bronze strands in his mane – the moon enchants his silhouette, and the dark corner he occupies is gleaming with a thousand gems, reflected off his fur.

He returns his gaze to the door, to Cinderace’s illuminated face, full of fear.

“I have to go-”

Zamazenta croons, sounding like a rumbling flute, a shaking cello, tossing his head. The slight movement shakes moonlight across the room.

In the scattered drizzle of light Hop sees the long spines of his Pincurchin in the dark, the royal blue of his Cramorant a step away. All moonlight is erased and the pitch black returns, but now he can sense his pokémon watching him, their presence asteroids in his orbit.

He walks on, and with every step the room shifts with him.

“I have to go, I have to go,” Hop chants, stumbling in the dark, “he’s hungry, he could be back at the farm now, I left him his…”

Cinderace pushes as hard as Hop does, standing his ground. Knitted wool and winter fur between them, they test their burning wills by the shoe-rack in the dark. Struggling without violence, it takes all they have to stand where they are against the other. 

“Where I left him, I left him there, even though it was foggy—”

Zamazenta presses his nuzzle between them. Then Hop is butted back, one step at a time, as gently as the large pokémon can manage.

“Stop, stop it, I have to find him,” Hop cries, clawing in the air for the door, “he hates the dark, he’ll go to the farm, I told him to stay where it’s bright, Wooloo, Wooloo, he—”

He hasn’t been Wooloo for years now, but the sharpest, brightest image is his small starter in his smaller hands. His Wooloo, his starter, his most loyal friend. His gentle pokémon that wouldn’t attack unless Hop instructed, his Dubwool that followed lights in the fog because Hop told him to.

“Let me go!” Hop sobs, “Wooloo! Dubwool!”

“Roselia,” comes a voice through the deep dark. Then all Hop knows is a rose-scented sleep.

He wakes in his bed, to bleating, and keeps his eyes shut until he feels his tears being licked away. He keeps his eyes closed even as he falls off the bed and buries his face in mud-caked wool. The damp smell of undone laundry is gone, and the room smells like salt, mud and the warm lemon of tea someone left on his bedstand.

From downstairs a door is open and shut. Hop calls out, hobbling and down the stairs to an empty room. There’s a pokéball on the table.

xo

**_#707 – Klefki_ **

_This Pokémon is constantly collecting keys. Entrust a Klefki with important keys, and the Pokémon will protect them no matter what._

There’s only one key on its silver loop.

“I suppose you open a door in Wyndon?” Hop asks, the bright gleam off the pokémon’s face dizzying him.

The Klefki dips and rises in the air as a nod. Its metallic face reminds cold and unreadable.

“And I suppose,” Hop whispers, Dubwool warm at his feet, “that someone else has a copy of your key?”

Another nod.

Hop looks down. The floating shadow of a key dances across his lap. Swaying slowly, the shadow darkens, and its shape gains clarity. Klefki hovers slowly lower, and lower still, till The Key touches his knees. Klefi stays by his left hand for a moment, its face searching.

Catching light in one quick moment, the key swings, its jagged edges gleaming with speed. Hop startles back, hands out in defence.

The key ring loops and lands at the base of his fourth finger, heavy like a wishing star. It stays there, lodged and still as a fossil, waiting to be appraised.

It's a question.

“What else is my answer going to be?” Hop whispers, “You knew I was in love with you since…”

Klefki stares.

“You’re surprised?” Hop laughs softly, “He knew it was going to be him, didn’t he?”

Klefki doesn’t nod.

“I’d have told him if he asked,” Hop says, warming Klefki’s cold metal in his hands, “I guess we’re both allowed to be surprised.”

**_#816 Sobble_**

**_#813 Scorbunny_**

Victor points at the Sobble.

“Club Soda,” he decides.

He moves his pointer to the next Sobble.

“Bottle,” he says.

He moves to the next Sobble still.

“Um, Crybaby Jr. the fourth,”

“Vic, you don’t have to nickname all the Sobbles you hatch,” Hop reminds, recording Sobbles #450 - #453, “we have hundreds more if you’re serious about finding a shiny today,”

“How many Scorbunnies are you on?” Victor asks, helping the nursery staff load three more eggs onto his Rotom bike.

“845 and counting,” Hop sighs. Cinderace just about left the nursery himself and refused to cooperate the rest of the week.

Route 5 is empty at daybreak, but they only have hours before campers around the area start waking. Victor lifts the kickstand and turns, riding down the long bridge again. 

The sun warms the wild area below and Hop breaks his stare past the bridge wall before the long grass sways him. One of them had to stay focused, between Victor and himself.

There’s a loud crack as Victor glides to a stop by Hop.

He’s off his bike in a flash, circling back to unlatch the egg carrier carefully. The clear acrylic has specks of eggshells on its surface – Hop reaches out to clean it, then diverting to slap Victor’s hands away. Just a moment before he just about cracked the hatching eggs over his knee to help them along.

“They’ll imprint on you, Vic,” Hop reminds _again_ , and shoves Victor a bottle to keep his hands occupied. 

“Pudding,” Victor says, pointing with his one free hand.

“Sobble #454,” Hop records.

“Crybaby #456,” Victor insists.

“Won’t you let the new trainers nickname them?” Hop sighs, as Victor loads up three more eggs. The nature of charity work seemed to elude Victor – either way, the Champion was thrilled that more trainers wanted a Sobble just like him.

Oblivious to their popularity, the wild Sobbles, notoriously difficult to locate, let alone capture, only got more evasive. They used to be a usual sight after the rain by puddles and streams, easy to spot while invisible by their distinct prints in the mud – but they’d vanished, quite literally, in recent years.

A fellow scientist caught one during field work, only to release it a moment later.

“It’s oddly green,” his colleague had commented, frowning, “like _sickly_ green. They’re hiding underwater, I bet – all that algae in their diet must’ve done it.”

Victor’s easy to convince over dinner, with the prospect of finding a shiny for himself. Besides, official business was as good a reason as any other for them to spend time together. Victor left his Crybaby with the nursery weeks ago, not without a good measure of melodrama. In every brief moment Hop spends with him the weeks after, the fresh enthusiasm only wilts and withers.

(“They asked if I retired Crybaby,” Victor says, when he’s so angry he can’t sleep. Hop stops him at the door since Inteleon isn’t there to do it, three in the frigid morning when Victor wants to run off his emotions.

“What did you say?” Hop asks, holding Victor close and digging in his heels.

“Never,” Victor says, “Never.”)

He broaches the topic at Crybaby #528.

“What are you going to name it?”

Victor turns his attention from the cluster of Sobbles before him. The feather toy is immediately soaked.

“I don’t know. Crybaby whatever?”

Hop holds his stare. What doesn’t melt, cracks. A fissure is growing into a crack on Victor’s poker face.

“You don’t plan on keeping it, do you?”

The sun is parallel and Victor’s face would be inscrutable even if Hop could see it past the blinding light. He stands and turns to his bicycle, fiddling with the latch on the egg case and not answering.

“I’m not going to replace Crybaby.” Victor whispers. His Inteleon is up in a tall tree, retrieving the ball Crispy kicked up there. All Hop can see of him is his long tail, which never curled neatly ever since he fractured it in a tournament. He should have known Victor agreed just to make him happy.

His back is turned, then he’s off, riding to the far end of the bridge.

“Lee has a shiny Charizard too, you know,” Hop says, when Victor draws near again.

Victor pauses, one foot on the pedal and the other on the warm tiles.

“I know,” he replies. Then he turns away.

To the far end of the bridge, where he turns. Then towards Hop again, only to stop and turn midway through the bridge. Again, and again, three times he repeats it, before Hop walks to the halfway point himself.

Hop stops in front of the bike. Victor turns the handlebars, and Hop stretches out his arms.

Victor stops, trapped in the sun’s heat and emotion like an awkward loveboat ride months before.

Hop reaches out to wipe the tears from Victor’s eyes.

“He’s still battle-fit,” Victor says, “He’s still the strongest.”

 _Still_ , because five years is a long time for a battle pokémon, even with the country’s best care. _Still_ in trainer language means “any time now”. The league opened a new pokémon sanctuary the other day, his brother cut the ribbon. Charizard was absent again. It’s windy and his flame is a candle.

Why the Applin, after all these years? What was he so afraid of hearing if he asked? What did he stand to lose now?

“Nothing’s going to replace him,” Victor says, “Especially not another Inteleon. I don’t care if it’s a shiny, I don’t care if it has a hidden ability. I don’t want any of them. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know.”

Because love makes common things special. It makes them irreplaceable.

“I’d care,” Hop says, “If it’s a shiny with a hidden ability,”

Victor looks up to meet his eyes.

“I’d trade you a shiny Scorbunny for it,” Hop says.

Victor smiles. Hop’s reflection in his eyes is brave, and all the fear is in Victor’s tears, cried out and on the ground.

“It’s gotta have a hidden ability,” Victor says.

Hop rolls his eyes and offers his hand.

Off his seat, over the handrails, Hop pulls Victor forward till his collar is close enough to grab. They answer every question between them over the wild area, in the light of their new morning. In that moment broken hearts could be fixed and forever is a certainty – Inteleons could be Sobbles again, and everstones could be diamonds.

“Deal?”

“Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> (“That’s how you ask a question, Champion,”)


End file.
